This song obviously owes a great deal to William Butler Yeats' "Byzantium":
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
The reference to the Tyrell's mechanical owl ([i]Bladerunner[/i]) tipped me off.
It is also a cut-up of lines from previous R.E.M. songs, obviously.
I think the overall point here is a call to the creation of (subversive?) art as a means of beating mortality. Hence, lines like "Give into the machine" I take as being the opposite of a "deus ex machina" -- you're letting go of your own ego as little-god artist and letting your work take on a life all its own without you getting in the way. After all, in a best case scenario, it will far outlive you. Maybe far outlive us all!
I also suspect, then, that the "submarine" might well be the subconscious mind as a creative source to draw from.
In any case, the allusions to the Yeats are very strong, and I suspect the sense of that poem has a lot to do with the sense of this song. Sing, sing, against the dying of the light!
This song obviously owes a great deal to William Butler Yeats' "Byzantium":
That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees
An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
The reference to the Tyrell's mechanical owl ([i]Bladerunner[/i]) tipped me off.
It is also a cut-up of lines from previous R.E.M. songs, obviously.
I think the overall point here is a call to the creation of (subversive?) art as a means of beating mortality. Hence, lines like "Give into the machine" I take as being the opposite of a "deus ex machina" -- you're letting go of your own ego as little-god artist and letting your work take on a life all its own without you getting in the way. After all, in a best case scenario, it will far outlive you. Maybe far outlive us all!
I also suspect, then, that the "submarine" might well be the subconscious mind as a creative source to draw from.
In any case, the allusions to the Yeats are very strong, and I suspect the sense of that poem has a lot to do with the sense of this song. Sing, sing, against the dying of the light!